Armstrong returns for Tour Down Under

After three and a half years of retirement, Lance Armstrong will race again this weekend in the Tour Down Under in South Australia. Mark Sexton finds out why the seven-time Tour de France champion is returning to the world of professional cycling.

Transcript

MARK BANNERMAN, PRESENTER: There are few athletes so talented and successful they transcend their own sport but certainly that's the case for cyclist Lance Armstrong. A record seven-times winner of the Tour de France he has also won the battle against cancer.

But after three and a half years of retirement, Lance Armstrong will race again this weekend in the Tour Down Under in South Australia. It's hard to imagine he has anything left to prove, so why is this champion returning to the demanding world of professional cycling?

Mike Sexton reports.

LANCE ARMSTRONG, CYCLIST: For me it's not so much a sporting challenge, and it's not a financial challenge, it's not any of those things.

I came back as a volunteer and so I'm here for the love of the bike and for the passion for the cause and I think, I think those two are well worth it.

MIKE SEXTON, REPORTER: In a most unlikely setting, the Adelaide Hills in forty-plus degree heat, the man many consider the greatest cyclist ever to wear lycra is back in the saddle.

It's a sight that's stunned even those who follow the sport intimately.

PHIL LIGGETT, CYCLING COMMENTATOR: I went up and I say, 'what are you crazy or what?'. He said 'it's kind of fun isn't it?' I said Lance I was thinking of retiring, but if you're going to come back I've got to stay around because I've got to see this.

RACE CALLER: In the back, there he is, happy to free-wheel home...

MIKE SEXTON: When Lance Armstrong was last on a bike, he'd just won his record-breaking seventh consecutive Tour de France, assuring his legend as the greatest rider this brutal event has ever seen.

But after three years of retirement, he decided to come back and after six months training he'll race this weekend at the Tour Down Under.

LANCE ARMSTRONG: I knew that being off the bike for three and a half years I needed to start racing soon. And I couldn't wait. If July was a goal, or July was the month everybody focuses on, I couldn't start in March, I needed to start soon.

MIKE SEXTON: But this is not the first time he's made a dramatic come-back. In 1996, Lance Armstrong was diagnosed with testicular cancer, that spread to his lungs and brain. It took two years to beat the disease, after which he channelled the mental strength from that fight into cycling.

LANCE ARMSTRONG: The way I view the preciousness of life, or my life, or my kids' lives, the job that I do, I think has changed. I mean I can look at my job, so to speak, in two ways, in two parts because I was a professional cyclist before the diagnosis and the way I approached my sport 1992 to 1996 was very different than I approached it afterwards.

MIKE SEXTON: This comeback is in part a way for Lance Armstrong to again fight cancer. But this time using his celebrity.

His foundation has raised more that $400-million and part of his agreement with the race organisers in Adelaide was that they arrange meetings and opportunities for him to spread his message. we're reminded on a daily basis that this epidemic is truly a global issue - 22,000 people a day die from this disease, eight million a year. It kills more people around the world than AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined.

It's time for not just Americans or Australians or Asians but for all of us to act.

MIKE SEXTON: Race director Mike Turtur puts Lance Armstrong's success down to a combination of the mental toughness born in adversity and an engine room with a heart 30 per cent bigger than average and lungs to match.

MIKE TURTUR, TOUR DOWN UNDER RACE DIRECTOR: Cycling is an oxygen sport and Lance Armstrong was born with a capacity of about eight litres. So he's able to inhale about a litre and a half more than guys like Stuart O'Grady and that allows him to increase the energy production, and make him what he is.

MIKE SEXTON: Despite his awesome winning record, Lance Armstrong's return to the sport is welcome by his oxygen-challenged competitors.

STUART O'GRADY, CYCLIST: I think Lance is just absolutely supernatural athlete. And I think just having him come to the Tour Down Under and racing in Australia is just going to be absolutely massive.

MIKE SEXTON: But there are some who question whether the Texan's achievements are all the result of strong mind and body.

DR MIKE ASHENDEN, SPORTS SCIENTIST: I think that Lance Armstrong's era is unquestionably associated with drug use. And for him to come back into the sport is going to bring back those same old stories, those haunts from the past. I can't see that it's going to help cycling to move on.

DR MIKE ASHENDEN: I had a look at the results and I overlaid what the results were telling me with the race event itself and it matched almost perfectly what you would expect a cyclist to do and how you would expect a cyclist to use EPO.

The congruence of the two was compelling to my opinion.

MIKE SEXTON: Because of procedural irregularities, the samples weren't used to impose a sanction and a subsequent independent inquiry heavily criticised the sampling and testing procedures.

However that report in turn was described by the World Anti-Doping Agency as being full of holes. Although he has never failed a drug test, even Lance Armstrong's close friends have asked him about the allegations.

PHIL LIGGETT: I said, 'Lance, do you take drugs?' And he looked at me and he said 'Phil, I've seen death in the face with cancer. And I am not going back to that bed. So the answer is no'.

MIKE SEXTON: Commentator Phil Liggett believes part of the motivation for Lance Armstrong's return is to use his bike to silence his critics.

PHIL LIGGETT: He is absolutely furious about these remarks and has sued everybody and won every case. Now he said 'I don't sue them any more, I just ignore them'.

But he also wants to come back I think to prove that he can still win, with all the latest testing procedures, without taking drugs.

MIKE SEXTON: Lance Armstrong has commissioned his own private testing regime, promising to make the results public.

LANCE ARMSTRONG: There is always that temptation, but I prefer not to... I think the big champions that work the hardest always win, regardless of what they're up against, I think.

True class especially in a hard sport like cycling, true class always comes out on top.

MIKE SEXTON: Which is why he's sweating under a scorching South Australian sun, willing his 37-year-old body on. Lance Armstrong says his comeback may be only one or two years and to expect a win in this event is unrealistic but his extraordinary life story suggests almost anything is possible.

LANCE ARMSTRONG: I try to constantly remind myself that I was very lucky and that I try not to waste any days. I try to take advantage of every opportunity I can, every day that I have and whether that's a training ride or whether that's an event at a hospital or whatever, they're all special now.